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Business Storytelling

Story Matters - You use stories every day to communicate ideas and events in your personal life. But for some reason, when you walk through the doors of your office or open your business email application, you avoid your natural storytelling DNA. In today's market you need to be interesting and relevant and stories are the way to get there.

So your success in moving people hinges on your ability to tell stories, build relations and make your listeners believe your solution is magical.

In everyday business situations, you have the opportunity to do more than just educate them. Through stories you can get your listener to see and feel something. And that will make you and your story memorable.

Unlike simply stating facts or arguments, Neuroscience experiments have shown that when a story is being told, the brain activity of the listener aligns with that of the storyteller. That connection is a powerful thing for a storyteller. When there is a connection between an idea or action and a story, it’s more easily remembered and recalled later.

Stories are natural

It’s said, “You can tell a culture by listening to its stories. You can change a culture by changing its stories.” If you can get people past “what” or “how” and get them to tell you a story, you can get to the “why”. And that is significant in discovering and connecting. If you can get someone to tell you their story, you’re connected.

As business professionals you have numerous opportunities to discover new stories. And there is something you can do that has tremendous potential to strengthen your relationship with your teams, customers and partners. It’s the act of getting them to share their stories. When it comes to sharing their needs, it often comes in the form of a bulleted list or a long spreadsheet of requirements. These often tell the what or how, but almost never tell the why. Stories are one of the best ways to tell why. If you ever had someone hand you a list of requirements, take the time to look them over, but then put them down and see if you can get them to tell you some stories around the topic.

How would you respond if your boss or manager called and asked you “What happened this week?” Most people will begin to report on the events of the week. “I finished this task. I had two team meetings on a specific project. Etc.” If however, you spouse, child, parent or person friend aske you “What happened this week?” you are likely to respond with stories. “Tuesday morning I was having coffee with Sarah and she said…” For some reason we use stories everyday in our personal lives but we check it at the door of our businesses.

Stories work

Let's try something. Here are some things I'd like to share with you.

When we present and just list a series of facts or assumptions, all we're really doing is trying to educate the audience.

Can you remember who picked up the eggs or who gave the speech? Who wrote the play? A list of facts or assumptions is not memorable.

But what if we connected that list with some story that you probably already know?

This list is more relevant because it’s connected to stories. By the way, this and many of the ideas from this deck are credited to Shawn Callahan from Ancedote.com

Stories make ideas memorable.

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou

Stories are special

If you want your organization to be successful, your people need to develop a storytelling habit.

This is directly from “Putting Stories to Work” from Shawn Callahan.

If you looked at the spectrum of stories, on one end there would be the Big “S” stories. These are the legends, fairytales, epic adventurers of heroes and villains who may even be larger than life. These are used by filmwriters and novelists and usually take a significant amount of time and effort to set up the characters, form the plot and deliver the moral or lesson. While there are some great lessons we can learn from these structures, as sales professionals we are much more likely to engage in the Little “s” stories. These are anecdotes, stories of life examples and recounting of experiences, personal interactions and dialogs.

We use these stories every day in our personal lives. After you’ve left work, if anyone has ever asked you about your day or how things went, you most often will use a story to respond. Yet in our business lives, we’ve somehow programmed ourselves to use something more formal and educational. If your boss was to ask you to report on what you’ve been doing this past week, I expect most of us would begin to develop a bulleted list of accomplishments. The same goes for how we prepare to answer the prospect’s questions about our solutions. Somewhere along the line we’ve abandoned the more natural, and more effective tendency of telling stories for a more sterile list of facts or figures. Even when we speak in business terms of references we all too often dissect the story and lay it out in sections: Here is the customer’s name. Here are facts about their business. Here is a statement of their business problem. Here is what we used to fix it. Here is the resulting figures. All good elements of a success story, but by tearing into these separate components, we fail to weave a story that evokes emotion and makes the listener feel anything.

Your story discovery will require you to train your ear and attention to stories being told…vs. the non-stories so often put in front of us. You’re talking with an executive and he’s going to share his company’s story.

He states, “Our brands enhance the technology that connects us to the people, activities and experiences we love. Our products are renown for their simplicity and ease of use, and make wireless connectivity mainstream around the globe. Our newest brand is a leader in delivering customizable smart home experiences. Its platform empowers people to monitor, measure and manage their electronics, appliances and lighting at home and on-the-go.”

While that may sound impressive….

…it’s not a story. What he shared was a series of assertions. By the way, this actually came from a company website’s “About Us” page, which can be a great place for you as a sales rep to look for company culture and stories.

Stories have guidelines

Like the pirates code, what makes a story is more of a guideline than an actual set of rules

To help you identify stories, there are some hallmarks you should look for. And before we begin, you should know this isn’t a hard and fast structure, but more of a tool to help you tune in.

Oral stories usually start with a time or place. It’s a stake in the ground from which to launch the story. When someone says, “Yesterday, John and I…” or “Last week in the warehouse…”, it’s likely that what follows is going to be a story. We do this almost without thinking when we’re telling stories outside work, but often in business settings we jump right into the events and actions and don’t give the listener a starting image. So while you’re trying to make your point, they are spending mental energy trying to place it in time and space. So as you develop your own stories, make sure to you provide your listener with your story’s place or time.

Next comes one or more events that are connected to one another. This is the backbone of the story. In fact, this is what people often refer to as the storyboard. A correct sequencing of these events and proper transitioning between events is paramount to a good story. As you develop stories, keep this in mind. You know the frustration of listening to a story only to have the teller stop mid-sentence and state, “wait, before this all happened, you should know...” For the mind of the listener, it’s like trying to splice the movie film while the projector is running. It’s difficult to keep it all sorted out. And most likely the business point you are trying to make is going to end up on the cutting room floor.

The next telling component of a story is one that is almost exclusive to stories. It’s people and more specifically, dialogue. Most stories have people doing things and in almost all circumstances they will be talking. If you hear dialogue, it’s a strong chance there is a story present. In fact, it’s been said that dialogue can only be delivered in a story.

And to have impact, a good business story will impart something unexpected, something the listeners didn’t already know. It doesn’t have to been an earth shattering revelation, but if you can get them to think, “Um…that’s interesting”, then your story has succeeded.

Stories are significant

Put it to them briefly so they will hear it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and above all, accurately so they will be guided by it’s light. – Joseph Pulitzer

Story resources

Shawn Callahan is a great storyteller as well as an excellent coach for leader and sales storytellers. His book “Putting Stories to Work” is an excellent resource as is his company’s website www.ancedote.com

Storytelling is extremely relevant to business and there are a variety of workshops on the topic. I’m a storyteller for IBM and we would love to have the opportunity to work with you.

So if you and your organization need assistance in discovering, developing and sharing your story, please reach out. I’d love to help.

You can reach me through my website www.creativitycrisis.com. Via email at richardl@us.ibm.com, linkedin.com/in/louisrichardson or message me using twitter @inter_vivos. Thank you for investing your time viewing this story. If you have any comments, please leave them below.